47
A little while later, Judy answered the phone and passed it over to Jen, a knowing smirk on her face.
‘Mr Hoskins for you,’ she said smugly.
‘Hello,’ Jen said, turning away from her slightly.
‘I just want to ask you one question,’ Sean said at the other end. ‘Did you sort all your problems out and everything’s fine and you’re happy and I should leave well alone, or did they get worse and you’re an outcast living in a hovel with no friends, or neither of the above?’
‘The second one,’ Jen said.
‘In which case, would you like to go out for a drink with me this evening?’
She thought about her empty house. Another evening in front of the TV with no Jason, Simone or Emily for company. Single women were supposed to go out with men, and she seemed to be a very single woman now. What was the worst that could happen? That she might almost enjoy herself for a couple of hours?
‘OK.’
They arranged that he would collect her from reception at the end of her shift, like a regular date, now that she had no reason to be discreet. She knew that there was no chance of her launching herself at him as she had done before – or, indeed, at any man ever again; she had had enough rejection for one lifetime. She didn’t even feel the butterflies that she had felt before, the sense of nervous anticipation. She still thought he was an attractive man but, truthfully, she really wasn’t sure whether or not she actually fancied him, or if what had happened had happened because she would have been drawn to any man who had shown an interest in her when her real life got to be too much.
‘So,’ Sean said, when they had settled down with their drinks, ‘I’m not expecting you to tell me what went on, but I can’t say I’m not curious.’
‘Oh no, you’re not getting off that lightly,’ Jen said. ‘I’m going to bore you with all the details.’
She told him the whole story, right down to the fact that it was she who had blown the whole thing apart, and the mean-spirited way in which she had done so. She figured he might as well know the worst about her. She saw his eyebrows shoot upwards involuntarily when she explained exactly who her father-in-law was – the way people’s always did – but if he had an opinion on Charles and his views, he kept it to himself.
‘God, what a nightmare,’ the master of understatement said, when Jen finally ran out of things to say. ‘And you don’t think maybe Jason just needs time?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t blame him, if he hates me, after the way I treated his family. And then there was … not that he even knows about that.’
So far, they had avoided any mention of Sean’s last visit. Jen knew that they should probably address it, but she would rather have had her eyelashes pulled out one by one than confront it head on.
Sean had other ideas. ‘I hope you’re not still beating yourself up about that,’ he said.
She looked at the table. How interesting. Someone had carved ‘Fuck Arsenal’ into it. Wow. Had Samuel Pepys been sitting at this very spot?
‘Because I’m not having that argument about who was most to blame again.’
‘Don’t …’ she said.
He smiled, and she wondered whether there would now be an awkwardness between them that would cloud the evening.
Sean had other ideas, though. ‘Do you fancy dinner?’
They ate at Pescatori. Chargrilled squid followed by monkfish in pancetta for Jen. She had walked past the restaurant hundreds of times but never been inside. It was far too fancy. She knew she wasn’t going to let Sean pay for the whole thing, so her enjoyment was somewhat ruined by her trying to work out whether she had sufficient funds in her account to cover half the bill, or whether her card would be rejected. She and Jason still had their joint account but, other than the regular mortgage payments going out of it, and the direct debits for gas and electric, neither of them was touching it. Jen knew they would have to sort it out, one day, but it felt so final that she didn’t want to be the one to bring it up.
She and Sean chatted easily. He was the kind of person who never projected any atmosphere. In a good way. He didn’t leave you trying to guess what you’d said wrong, or whether you’d offended him. If there was a potential misunderstanding, he’d get to the bottom of it, usually with a joke. He was – or, at least, he seemed to be to Jen – blissfully uncomplicated. She could imagine he would be easy to live with. For the first time in weeks, she felt relaxed. Happy, even.
‘Are your parents still alive?’ she asked him at one point.
‘Yes, but they live in Portugal. One brother, one sister. Both in London, both nice normal people. No family dramas for me.’
She decided she liked him even more.
Later, after Sean had insisted on paying for the meal in spite of her protests, they walked back in the direction of the hotel. Jen knew that neither of them was about to attempt to pin the other up against a wall or suggest they go to his room. They were doing it properly, this time. Taking it slowly. Actually waiting to see how they felt.
‘If I was any kind of a man, I’d offer to take you home, but I have literally no idea where Wimbledon is, or how to get there.’
She laughed. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m used to it.’
‘At least let me put you in a taxi.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not even late.’
‘Then I’ll walk you to the Tube.’
At Goodge Street they hugged for longer than they would have if all they thought they would ever be was friends.
‘I’d like to see you again. For dinner, I mean, not just walking through reception,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow night? Not that I’m trying to rush things, but I’m only here till Thursday.’
‘Tomorrow night would be lovely. I’m paying, by the way.’
He hesitated, clearly thinking that to refuse would be to insult her. ‘OK. Thank you.’
‘McDonald’s all right?’
He laughed. ‘Perfect.’
They hugged again and he kissed her briefly, his mouth against her mouth. She felt her knees buckle a little. OK, so who was she kidding? Maybe she did fancy him after all.
‘Text me when you get home, so I know you’re there safely.’
‘What are you going to do about it if I’m not?’ she asked, teasing him.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Call the police and ask them to scour the area between here and Wimbledon? I’m sure they have nothing better to do.’
‘Night, Sean.’ She headed into the station, a smile on her face.
It stayed there all the way home, even when the Tube changed its mind about going to Colliers Wood and stopped at Kennington instead, even when she just missed the bus at her connection and had to wait nearly twenty minutes for another one, even when it started to rain on the walk at the other end and she didn’t have an umbrella. She liked him, he definitely liked her, and the embarrassment of the last time they had seen each other was a thing of the past.
Definitely progress.
‘Is it wrong that I’m kind of seeing someone?’ she said to Judy the next day.
She was taking her break out the back of the hotel, in between the bins and the air-conditioning units. Judy was waiting for her shift to start.
‘No,’ Judy said. ‘Of course not. You’re not the one who walked out.’
Jen and Sean had exchanged a bit of small talk over the desk when he had been on his way out for the day. Jen had warned him that, although she wasn’t hiding the fact that they had had dinner the night before from any of her colleagues – well, maybe from Graham Roper the Doorman Groper, because the less he knew about what she did in her private time the better – it wouldn’t do to be seen to be too flirty while she was at work.
Because she was on an early, and had been up since four thirty, she was already dead on her feet and had told Sean there was no way she could possibly make it past nine o’clock, so they had arranged to meet as soon as she got off her shift.
By six o’clock, they had had two drinks in the pub and were looking at menus in Zen Garden – Sean’s suggestion. He had claimed a yearning for dim sum, but Jen knew he had chosen one of the cheapest – but still nice – restaurants in the area, because he knew she was going to stick to her declaration that it was her shout.
The evening felt more loaded than the night before. This was a proper date, there was no question, so self-consciousness had crept in, yet again, and was threatening to kill off the conversation. It didn’t help that Jen had been struck by the thought, in the middle of the night, that if she and Sean continued like this, they were more than likely going to have sex, eventually. He was going to see her naked. The last time, when they’d had their near miss, she had been so carried away by the moment that she hadn’t given it a second thought. Now, when half the excitement should be in the anticipation, she felt nothing but fear. She was a forty-three-year-old mother of two. She had not spent the last twenty years in the gym doing crunches just in case, one of these days, she might have to take her clothes off in front of a man who might not appreciate that her slightly pouchy stomach came with the job.
Ridiculous, she knew, but then her development, as far as relationships with men went, had been arrested at the age of twenty-one, when these kinds of things were paramount.
She pushed a white glutinous squidgy blob, which had started to remind her uncomfortably of her admittedly slim but untoned thighs, around her plate.
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘How are the flour rolls?’ Sean said, no doubt wondering where his sparkly companion had gone.
‘Delicious.’
‘My prawn dumplings are superb.’
‘Great.’
Sean laughed. ‘I know what this is. We’ve hit the awkward stage. It’s suddenly dawned on us both that this might go further, and we’ve entirely lost the art of conversation.’
Jen immediately felt more at ease. This was a man who she could be totally upfront and honest with. Nothing seemed to faze him.
‘Only if we allow it to be. In my experience, if we force ourselves to talk about anything, however banal, and then we go back to my room for ten minutes before you have to leave and we get to second base – no further, mind you – then the next time we see each other everything will be fine.’
‘It sounds like you’ve been through this before.’
‘Trust me, I’m an expert. That’s why I’m still single.’
‘No one except Jason has seen me naked in years,’ she blurted out. She might as well put her cards on the table.
Sean held his hands up. ‘Whoa. Who said anything about seeing you naked? That’s at least base four.’
She laughed. ‘How many are there?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I just mean, I’m not thirty any more and … well … you know.’
‘Who do you think I am? Ryan Reynolds? I’m interested in you, not your six-pack.’
‘It’s more like a Party Seven, these days, but I take your point.’
And that was it, awkwardness over.
They did go back to his room later, and just for ten minutes, like he’d said. Jen thought they’d got to second base. They lay on his bed and kissed and a few clothes got rearranged, anyway. She felt incredible. Sean could turn off jokey and go for passionate at the flick of a switch.
By the time she had to leave, she could hardly tear herself away. She had no idea how those True Love Waits teenagers did it. No wonder they spent so much time praying and dry humping each other up against walls.